Reason

Etymology

The word reason comes from Latin ratio , translation problematic of the Greek Concept of logos . The Greek word means word , speech , theory , reason , etc; the Latin word does not have all these directions, but contains the idea of bond.

However, where the Greeks were speakers, the Romans were above all " comptables" : ratio indicates initially calculation , calculation , the account . Thereafter, it indicates the commercial relations , before finally acquiring the direction that we know to him (cf Gaffiot dictionary)

The Logos is also a name given to God. The Gospel of Jean known as At the beginning was the Logos . This topic was lengthily commented on in the Discours of Ratisbon.

Principles of the reasoning

Identity principle

The philosophical speech needs coherence. An expression of this need is the identity principle which states that what east is. It is, according to Aristote ( Métaphysique , delivers gamma), the fundamental requirement of the rational speech. If it is not admitted, the direction of the concepts can change at any moment, which amounts saying that one can nothing say which is not contradictory. a thing is what it is (A=A)

Principle of non-contradiction

Aristote formula thus this principle: the same thing cannot, at the same time and under the same report/ratio, being and not to be in the same subject. (has is different from nonA)

Principle of the excluded third

One can allot only 2 states to a thing, a state and his opposite (or the absence of state). There does not exist third state " intermédiaire". Example: Either it snows, or it does not snow. And if it snows " a little " , then it snows. This principle appears less obviously than the three others.

Law of causality

This principle makes it possible to return understandable to become it, because if any thing has a cause, then a permanent reason of a phenomenon can be found. While supposing thus that same a Cause always produces the same effect, the reason has a criterion of Connaissance. (Any effect has a cause and under the same conditions the same cause produces the same effects)

Categories of the reasoning

Several philosophers (Kant, Renouvier, etc) sought has to establish the conceptual executives of the reason and to include/understand according to which categories we formulate judgments: unit, plurality, assertion, negation, substance, cause, possibility, need, etc the possibility of a categorization completed and complete would suppose that the human thought is immutable in its principles. It would thus suppose a reason identical to itself and without dynamism to the level of its standards which would be unchangeable. One can on the contrary estimate that it is possible to make the genesis of the reason, genesis which would show to us how these categories were constituted. This opposition, reason made up - reason in becoming, is, very schematically, the opposition of rationalism and empiricism.

Scientific reason

Rationalism and empiricism

Rationalism identifies the reason with the principles which we stated. This reason is thus a system, and it is the same one at all the men (see Descartes, Discourse on Method ). This reason is also the natural light by which we seize the ideas Inné are that God put in us: the Vérité in us, is preformed, A priori and constituting the bottom of our Pensée. From this point of view, the human spirit is put in report/ratio in a particular way with the divine one; indeed, in certain doctrines, the human reason can be melted in God (Malebranche, Spinoza, etc). Thus the man does not think it, but is thought as a God via his Raison. It is this extreme thesis of rationalism that Thomas d' Aquin had fought, when he was opposed on this point to Siger of the Brabant.

On the other hand, the Empirisme does not admit that the reason consists of principle A priori. The reason is a tabula shaved on which the data of the experiment are printed. The Knowledge thus coming entirely from the experiment, it has only principles there a posteriori . Thus Locke fights it against Descartes in its Essai on the human understanding. the study of the principles of the reason will be done then starting from the Sensation, of the Habitude, the Croyance, the succession regular of impressions, the association of Idée, etc

These two prospects on the Nature for the reason are not absolutely irreconcilable. The rationalist can give up the innate ideas, and admit the experiment; empiricism can admit the existence of innate principles. Each one of these two doctrines is in fact incomplete. The rationalist, while basing the human spirit on the only reason identical to itself, does not give an account of all the irrational processes which appear in the thought. But, in addition, the empirist denies any activity of the spirit, and does not admit that a principle of order can be innate, thus leaving the thought to the contingency of the experiment. However, it is noted that the reason has a certain power of scheduling.

Normative power of the reason

According to Aristote ( Metaphysical , delivers A), the role of the Philosophe is to order. Indeed, the Philosophe is that which devotes its life to the thought; it weighs and evaluates any thing. Consequently, it makes the light on what was obscure and good order puts at it. The Philosopher, it is thus, among the men, the Raison even. Beyond the Category S already made up of the reason, true system of Truth S which can be socially instituted, the Philosophe makes use of the Raison like constituent power: it saps the old one or assimilates it, builds on new bases and creates new standards, a new reason . Consequently the activity of the dynamic reason merges with the activity even of the philosopher: he invents, creates, organizes, synthesizes, solves, etc Bref, Philosophe and Raison is of the principles of order.

Rational standards and morals

Insofar as the reason states standards, it gives us rules of action which control our behavior. It thus enables us to clearly see the goal which we want to reach and to implement adequate means. But it gives us as the means of living in agreement with ourself, with the principles as we fixed ourselves to lead our life. In this direction, it enables us to distinguish the Valeur S morals and their hierarchy: it shows us on the one hand what we accept, admire, seek, and on the other hand what we cannot tolerate, which we refuse and kids. It is its discriminating moral function there.

Limits of the reason

The irrational one

The reason gives standards. But is the supreme Autorité in this field? What it does it make known to us is insuperable? As a system of principles, it is certain that the reason is not let exceed by claims with a supra-rational knowledge.

Descartes thought of being able to resort to the reason alone to reach with certainty the truth. Its famous Cogito ergo sum watch which it reasoned according to considered principles from its point of view. A knowledge perceived through the prism of an exclusively rational method can comprise certain harmful prejudices with in-depth training.

With it-only, the reason does not do anything to us to know, because the experiment at least is necessary. Thus the matter even of the experiment is it already a first limit with the reason. But we cannot either affirm with certainty only what we think according to the rules of the reason is A priori in conformity with reality in oneself. Reality and its laws can escape to us mainly, so that the reason is confronted with a resistance on behalf of a form of not-rationality and complexity of reality: the normalcy of the reason does not explain the totality of the world.

Pascal included/understood the world only in the relationship between globality and the details. In this spirit, Rene Dubos defined the formula: “to think total, act local”.

Reason and faith

The Science gives us the means of arriving up to a certain point at the knowledge of the natural world. Descartes claimed that one could reach with certainty the truth by the natural lights , " without the lights of the foi".

Science and faith maintained at all the times the complex relations, in which one could see the limits of such or such approach.

These limits are not the same ones in Théologie. Indeed, in this field of Knowledge, the Foi would enable us to exceed the given natural one and to raise us with a supernatural knowledge.

Of the 19th century, some (like Kierkegaard, Danish philosopher) think that it is the Foi, more than the reason, which is essential. The experiment of the Faith of Kierkegaard, lived in the suffering, makes him feel uncertainty, whereas one could believe that the reason brings the certainty.

In 1942, the Théologien Henri de Lubac gives Kierkegaard like example of Foi in the Drame of atheistic humanism .

It is however not necessary to make this experiment of suffering to make the experiment of the faith: we recognized the limiting higher of the reason. Arrived to these limits, we do not have any more a principle of explanation, and we are confronted with the radical otherness of the world. By seeking the origin of this otherness, some will explain it by the assumption of a creative God, others will not formulate any assumption, others still will deny the existence of any divine principle.

In all the cases, the Croyance which one chooses is obviously not entirely rational.

Reason and transcendence

The question of the relationship between the Faith and the Raison is developed in the pontifical Encyclique Fides and Ratio. This Encyclique notes the difference between the two terms, it gives a lighting on the various philosophical currents of these the last two centuries, and underlines the contributions of the Linguistique and the Sémantique in the contemporary world.

Without opposing faith and reason, it underlines the need for a base:

“It is not possible to stop with the only experiment; even when this one expresses and proclamation the interiority of the man and his spirituality, it is necessary that the speculative reflection reaches the spiritual Substance and the base on which it rests. ”

Reason and history

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